


Middlegame

by earlgreytea68



Series: Scotch [12]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-08
Updated: 2012-03-16
Packaged: 2017-11-01 15:23:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/358350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/earlgreytea68/pseuds/earlgreytea68
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The story of how Greg Lestrade came to live in Mycroft Holmes's house.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I know I promised an Empty House fic, and that is coming, but then I wrote this fic, and chronologically it belongs here, before the Empty House fic, so I'm posting it before the Empty House fic. I request your indulgence in this delay. This fic wasn't originally planned, but then once it was written I thought it very nicely explains how Mycroft and Lestrade got from "Scotch" proper to the tiny scene at the very end of "Scotch," and to the comfortable scenes of them in "12 Things," and to, subsequently, how they'll be in the Empty House fic. So, before getting to John and Sherlock's story, here's the rest of Mycroft and Greg's. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Thank you to my usual cheerleaders, to arctacuda for the beta, and to sensiblecat for the Britpick.

Mycroft owned a television. Actually, he had an entire media room that was clearly spare-no-expense and state-of-the-art, and Lestrade thought it was a pity that Mycroft was indifferent toward sports, because it was a fabulous set-up for a football match. 

“Why do you have this?” Lestrade had asked him, quizzically, when Mycroft had first shown it to him. It was tucked off the library, under the stairs, in a space that must have been carved from the rooms around it. 

Mycroft had quirked amusement at him in that way he had. “I’m not averse to technology, you know.”

Which Lestrade knew was true. In fact, he suspected Mycroft was much more adept with technology than Lestrade could ever hope to be. But still, the idea of Mycroft having a media room had not occurred to him. 

“What do you watch in here?” he’d asked, and Mycroft had shrugged and answered, “Where does one find the time to watch things?”

“One finds the time to watch things when one is dating someone,” Lestrade had informed him, and Mycroft had laughed and told him they could watch whatever he suggested. 

Lestrade knew Mycroft really would watch whatever Lestrade wished to, but Lestrade wanted Mycroft to enjoy the experience for reasons other than Lestrade’s company, immensely flattering though that might be. Lestrade thought maybe a movie, something well-made and clever. Hitchcock, he decided. 

“It’s _Rear Window_ ,” he had informed Mycroft, when he’d arrived. “It’s a classic.”

Mycroft had given him a look he couldn’t interpret, which had made Lestrade feel as if he’d done something terribly wrong. He was growing to recognize most of Mycroft’s looks, but this one was beyond him in a nervous-making way. 

“What?” he’d asked, hoping he didn’t sound defensive but knowing that he probably did. 

“Nothing,” Mycroft had responded, carefully, as if he were considering very closely what to say. “It’s a good choice. It’s a good movie.”

“You’ve seen it?” Lestrade had been annoyed with himself for picking what was apparently the one movie Mycroft had ever seen. 

Mycroft had given him that odd look again, and spoken carefully again. “Greg, do you imagine that I’ve never seen a single movie ever?”

Which had given Lestrade pause. Because, put that way, that had been a ridiculous assumption on his part. Mycroft would of course have seen movies. Maybe not at the frequency a normal person might, and maybe never a movie of frivolous, dubious quality, but he must have seen at least a few movies. Surely, at some point, Mycroft had been a boy, a teenager, even a younger man, and surely he had done some of the normal things people did at those ages, like watch movies. Lestrade tried to imagine it. Mycroft had obviously not sprouted into the world fully formed, but Lestrade could not envision what either Holmes had been like as a child. Sometimes he wished he could ask Sherlock to tell him, but he suspected Sherlock would say Mycroft always had been exactly the same, because to Sherlock he probably always had been. 

“So you’ve seen it,” Lestrade had concluded. 

“Yes. I like it. I like most Hitchcock. Which is why it was a good choice.” When Lestrade had first met with Mycroft, years ago, he had thought that he had a way with words, but Lestrade knew now it wasn’t so much words as tone. Mycroft could inflect a whole speech into the delivery of a single word if he so desired. Lestrade knew this talent of Mycroft’s could be sharp and unpleasant, but Lestrade primarily experienced its kinder, gentler side. Mycroft could say a simple phrase and inject it with enough warmth that Lestrade blushed and buzzed as dizzily as if he’d just been kissed. Mycroft had done it then, in calling the movie a good choice, and Lestrade had been delighted by what he now decided was brilliance on his part. And which he recognized was part of Mycroft’s charm, that he seemed to think many things Lestrade did were genuinely brilliant. 

Mycroft had then demonstrated the advantage of watching a movie they had both already seen—that advantage being that they spent most of the movie snogging—and Lestrade kept bringing Hitchcock with him to Mycroft’s. 

It was _North by Northwest_ that night, which Lestrade hadn’t seen in years, possibly since uni days. Which, honestly, would have been a more age-appropriate time to view a great classic of cinema by snogging on a not-quite-big-enough sofa in a darkened room. But Mycroft was an especially good kisser and Lestrade had no particular interest in _North by Northwest_ and a great deal of interest in the clever thing Mycroft was doing just _there_ with his tongue. 

Mycroft’s mobile rang, but a ringtone Lestrade had never heard from it before. Shorter and higher-pitched. Mycroft froze and drew back, frowning. His hair was tousled, and his tie was undone, and it was Lestrade’s favorite look for him, a state of disheveled he knew only he ever got to see. 

“I have to take that call,” said Mycroft, already reaching for where he’d tossed his suit jacket. 

“Of course,” said Lestrade, watching him extract the mobile. Mycroft seemed tense. Mycroft’s work was all-hours sort of work, which Lestrade didn’t mind in the least because so was his, and he wondered vaguely why Mycroft seemed tense about the interruption instead of merely annoyed. He hoped Mycroft didn’t think Lestrade was going to be difficult about it. 

Mycroft stood and exited the room, not in itself an unusual act. Sometimes Mycroft had work conversations in front of Lestrade, and sometimes he didn’t. Lestrade supposed it had to do with the level of clearance of the particular conversation. He wasn’t offended. 

Mycroft was gone for much longer than Lestrade would have expected, and that _was_ unusual. Mycroft might work when he was with Lestrade, but generally not for longer than five or so minutes at a time. But Mycroft was gone long enough for Lestrade to get engrossed in the movie. 

When Mycroft came back into the room, he was, as Lestrade liked to think of it, re-assembled, his suit crisp and clean and put-together. One would never have known that he ever looked any other way. The re-assembly, thought Lestrade, without saying anything, didn’t bode well for the resumption of this particular date. 

“I have to go,” Mycroft announced. 

“I can see that,” replied Lestrade. “I’d ask if everything’s all right, but if it were, you wouldn’t be going, would you?”

“Precisely,” said Mycroft, with a tight smile. “You should stay, though. Finish the movie. It’s a very good movie.”

“But I don’t come here for the movies,” Lestrade pointed out. “How long will you be gone?”

“I have no idea.” Mycroft looked distracted, and Lestrade thought that, under normal circumstances, Mycroft would already have been well on his way to the office, that Lestrade’s presence in the house was already slowing down the way things were supposed to function. 

Lestrade considered. Telling Mycroft he should go was ridiculous, because Mycroft wasn’t asking for permission and didn’t have to, anyway. He wondered if he should promise to phone Mycroft the next day. Did that seem too needy? More or less needy than asking Mycroft to phone him? Lestrade hated early-stage relationships. He decided upon, “We’ll reschedule _North by Northwest_. I’d hate for you to miss the ending.”

Mycroft smiled absently, then said, abruptly, “You should stay here.”

“What do you mean?” asked Lestrade, because Mycroft had already told him to finish the movie. 

“You should stay here, tonight.”

Lestrade hesitated. Staying the night at Mycroft’s was far from unprecedented and indeed, these days, more common than not. Staying the night at Mycroft’s _without_ Mycroft seemed a very different story however. 

“I’ll have to come home eventually,” Mycroft continued. 

Which was true. And Lestrade read between lines Mycroft didn’t say. Mycroft was tense and worried about something, clearly, and Mycroft wished Lestrade to stay. Because Mycroft would probably like to have him there when whatever was going on was over. It was not the sort of thing Mycroft would say out loud, but it _was_ the sort of thing Lestrade knew Mycroft depended upon him to know without him saying it out loud. Sometimes Lestrade felt as if he understood nothing about Mycroft, but other times he knew he understood Mycroft better than anyone ever had; he could read the wonder of that on Mycroft’s face and it was half terrifying. 

“Yes,” he said. “Fine. I’ll stay. Be careful.”

Mycroft leaned over and brushed a thoughtless, automatic kiss over his mouth, like a perfectly normal couple would when one of them was leaving for work. “It isn’t dangerous,” he said. 

“Maybe not, but you never know with that dodgy chauffeur you have.”

“He’s thoroughly qualified,” Mycroft told him, as he left the room. 

***

Lestrade re-started _North by Northwest_ from the beginning because he had time and decided he might as well. Mycroft still wasn’t home when he finished it, so Lestrade spent a little while investigating the quality of Mycroft’s cable, which was startlingly good in a way Lestrade suspected was not quite legal for people who weren’t the British government. Eventually, with an eye on the clock and aware that he had work in the morning, Lestrade decided to go to bed. 

The house was quiet, although there was a lamp lit at the foot of the stairs and another at the top. Lestrade wondered if the butler had done that specifically for him and if he was supposed to turn them off on his way up to bed. He had never seen Mycroft leave any lights on in the house, but, then again, maybe it was standard to leave them on when Mycroft wasn’t home, so he wouldn’t come home to complete darkness. Lestrade debated, then decided he was behaving stupidly over a minor point that Mycroft wouldn’t really care about, and he left them on. 

It was exceedingly strange to go to sleep in Mycroft’s bed without Mycroft, and Lestrade decided he didn’t really like it. Everything about it was familiar: the luxuriously comfortable bed, the expensively soft sheets, the angle of the moonlight through the French doors that led to the balcony, the outline of the shadows of the room’s ornate furniture. But it all felt vaguely sinister now that he was in the room by himself. The house seemed loud with its creaks and groans, without the cover of Mycroft’s breathing to mask them, and the antique clock on the dresser in the corner ticked. Lestrade had never noticed that it ticked before. Lestrade stretched out on his side of the bed and counted the seconds. 

He must have fallen asleep, because he woke to someone shaking him gently. He blinked Mycroft into focus, leaning over the bed. 

“You stayed,” he said, his voice soft, sounding surprised. 

“You asked me to,” Lestrade replied, and closed his eyes and snuggled back into his pillow. “What time is it?”

“Very late, or very early, depending on one’s perspective,” Mycroft answered. 

Which was such a Mycroft answer, even for the middle of the night, that Lestrade chuckled, thinking, as he sometimes did, _This is the ridiculous man you are in love with_. “Come to bed,” he said, sleepily. 

“I can’t. I only came to get a change of clothes.”

Lestrade opened his eyes again, bringing Mycroft back into focus. Well, Mycroft’s silhouette, at least, because the room was dark. “ _You_ came?” Because it seemed like an errand, the sort of thing that could have waited until morning and could have been handled by one of Mycroft’s endless assistants. The sort of thing he hadn’t needed to wake Lestrade up for, at the very least.

“Well, I didn’t want to send someone who might disturb you,” answered Mycroft, sounding a trifle defensive. 

Mycroft was almost never defensive, so Lestrade smiled, because what this meant was that Mycroft had just been curious about whether or not he’d stayed. It possibly also meant he had woken him just so he could talk to him, which should have been irritating but Lestrade was besotted enough to find it adorable. “ _You_ disturbed me,” he pointed out. 

Mycroft’s voice was laced with amusement when he replied. “Well, yes, but disturbing you is my prerogative.” 

“Only because you’re good in bed.”

“You say lovely things when you’re half-asleep,” said Mycroft, and kissed him. “I have to go.”

Lestrade nodded and yawned and turned back into his pillow. “Be careful,” he mumbled. 

“It’s not dangerous,” he heard Mycroft say, sounding fond. 

***

Lestrade woke next to his mobile beeping its alarm at him, and he opened his eyes just enough to ascertain he was still alone in the bed, mostly because if he was still alone he could hit the snooze button without bothering Mycroft. He forgot about hitting the snooze button, though, because there was a cream envelope sitting on Mycroft’s pillow, propped to face Lestrade, with _Greg_ written on it in Mycroft’s neat, precise handwriting. 

Lestrade shut off his alarm, sat up, and curiously reached for the envelope, which was too heavy to contain just paper. 

The envelope wasn’t sealed, and Lestrade reached in and pulled out a sheet of Mycroft’s expensive stationery and a single key. Lestrade glanced at the key and read the note. _It’s unclear when I’ll be back or even when I’ll have an opportunity to get in touch with you. Please feel free to stay at the house. I quite like not having it empty. –M._

Mycroft’s house was never empty, not with the butler and the cook, but Lestrade knew that literal emptiness was not what Mycroft had meant. He looked at the key in his hand and wondered if this now meant he was living with Mycroft Holmes. Only Mycroft would ask a significant other to move in by disappearing on him entirely, thought Lestrade. 

He showered and dressed and jogged down the stairs, working Mycroft’s key onto his key ring as he did so, and he was startled when the butler, Reynolds, said, cheerfully, “Good morning, Inspector. I’ve set out coffee for you in the dining room. Would you like breakfast as well?”

Lestrade froze three steps from the bottom of the staircase and considered Reynolds. Mycroft had leisurely breakfasts, at which Lestrade tended to join him, but Mycroft woke up early enough to allow for leisurely breakfasts, which Lestrade had decidedly not done. It had not occurred to him that Mycroft’s household staff would have prepared a breakfast for him. 

“Oh,” he said, trying to think if he could refuse the offer without seeming rude. He glanced at his watch and hated that he did it, because Mycroft Holmes’s butler knew bloody well how to read visual cues. 

“You’re running late,” he said, smoothly. “I’ll fetch your coffee to go.” 

“That’s…” Lestrade was going to tell him it was quite all right not to fetch his coffee to go, that he could stop on his way to work to grab coffee, but Reynolds had already disappeared into the dining room and, frankly, Mycroft had terrific coffee that made all other coffee taste like dishwater, so Lestrade was willing to sacrifice timeliness for its sake. 

Reynolds returned in less than a minute with a sleek, stainless steel travel mug. Lestrade had never seen Mycroft with a travel mug but it didn’t surprise him to learn that, since Mycroft did own a travel mug, it looked like this one. “It should be prepared to your satisfaction,” Reynolds told him, and handed him a paper bug. “And that’s a muffin.”

“Oh, brilliant,” said Lestrade, in undisguised delight. There were good things to be said for having a butler and a cook. “Tell Mrs. Taylor cheers for me.”

“Have a pleasant day, sir,” said Reynolds, sounding pleased with Lestrade’s delight. 

“Thank you,” Lestrade replied, turning to the door, and then abruptly turning back to Reynolds. “Mycroft gave me a key.”

“Very good, sir,” said Reynolds, blandly. 

“I mean, to the house.”

“Yes, sir,” said Reynolds, looking at him as if to ask what other type of key Mycroft would have given him. 

Which was a good question. Lestrade felt a little like an idiot, because he wasn’t sure what he meant to say next. He could not remember the last day he hadn’t spent at least some time in Mycroft’s house, so it seemed ridiculous to tell Reynolds he would be back at the end of the day, he was _usually_ back at the end of the day. “Okay,” he said. “I just didn’t want you to be startled when I opened the door by myself.” Which also sounded idiotic. He took a sip of his coffee because he thought that might help him sound halfway intelligent. 

“Not at all, Inspector,” said Reynolds, and smiled at him. 

The sort of smile, Lestrade thought, that you gave grown men who were behaving in foolish ways. “Bye,” he said, before he could embarrass himself further. 

***

Lestrade had several cases that weren’t making much sense, and, frustrated, he finally decided to take them home with him. And then he literally stood in front of his car and contemplated what “home” was and where he intended to take them. If he had not had the key to Mycroft’s house currently in his pocket, he would have gone to Mycroft’s house immediately, unthinkingly. He didn’t see why that should change now that he had the key. 

Determined not to be a coward, he drove himself and his files to Mycroft’s and let himself in the front door. Reynolds met him immediately, took some of the files from him, and carried them to the drawing room, where Lestrade tended to work when he was at Mycroft’s, after failed experiments in the dining room and the library. 

“Is he home?” Lestrade asked, following Reynolds with the rest of the files, but he assumed he wasn’t because normally Mycroft came to greet him if he was home when Lestrade got there. 

“No, sir,” Reynolds answered, setting the files down. “When would you like to have dinner?”

“Dinner?” echoed Lestrade. He ate when Mycroft got home. If he wasn’t home when Lestrade arrived, then Lestrade worked and waited for him and ate when he got there. 

“Yes, sir,” said Reynolds, clearly waiting patiently for Lestrade to make a decision about it. 

“You don’t think Mycroft will be home for dinner,” Lestrade concluded, which made sense, given Mycroft’s note that morning, but Lestrade had vaguely assumed that just meant another late night, not an _I’m not coming home at all for a little while_. Lestrade thought of the change of clothes trip the night before and wished he’d paid more attention. How much clothing, exactly, had Mycroft retrieved? 

“Probably not, sir,” responded Reynolds. 

“Right,” said Lestrade. “Well, there’s no need to make dinner just for me. We can order in.”

Reynolds was a good butler, with the poker face of a good butler. He radiated disapproval simply by _thinking_ it, no need to change his expression at all. “Order in?” he repeated. 

“Yes,” Lestrade said, staunchly. “Mrs. Taylor can have the night off.”

“Mrs. Taylor has already prepared dinner. She merely requests a time at which she should finalize it.”

Of course, thought Lestrade. Cooking took time, didn’t it? “Fine,” he sighed. “Whatever time works best for her, I’ll eat then.”

“Very good, sir,” said Reynolds, radiating relief that he had not been forced to commit the cardinal butler sin of ordering in. 

Lestrade watched him leave the drawing room and considered his files, then glanced at the chessboard instead, because he didn’t much feel like working at the moment. Then he narrowed his eyes. Mycroft had moved, he realized. During his middle-of-the-night visit, Lestrade supposed. In the middle of some sort of international crisis requiring his attention, Mycroft had paused to make a move in their chess game. 

Lestrade realized he was smiling as he sat at his side of the board and considered his options.


	2. Chapter 2

Life without Mycroft was unbearably _dull_. Lestrade had a dull dinner (delicious, but dull), tried to interest himself in work but grew bored with that, and wandered to the media room and tried to find something to capture his attention on television. The evening felt interminable. He tried to remember what he had done with his time before he’d met Mycroft and the answer was that it had been _this_. How had he ever done it? For the first time in a very long time his hands itched for a cigarette, and he realized why he’d taken up smoking in the first place: Because he hadn’t yet met Mycroft. He wasn’t sure how it had got to this point, but he went one full day without talking to Mycroft and he missed him an alarming amount. 

The following day was Saturday, and it was bright and sunny. Lestrade let himself sleep much later than he had since spending Saturdays with Mycroft, because Mycroft wasn’t a late sleeper. It should have felt like a luxurious treat, but instead it was depressing not to be coaxed out of bed far too early. He missed Mycroft with a physical ache, like a lovesick teenager, and he knew it was ridiculous, but it didn’t stop him from spending a minute breathing in the smell of Mycroft that lingered on his pillow. 

Saturday seemed like an impossible amount of time to fill. Lestrade wanted desperately to phone Mycroft, just to hear his voice, but he was probably busy, and Lestrade didn’t want to seem too clingy to deal with a day or two on his own. It might be _true_ —he just didn’t want it to _seem_ true. 

Mycroft liked to do things on Saturdays. He liked outings to the countryside, or an expensive dinner, or an afternoon at a museum. He also liked allowing Lestrade to cajole him to a pub, not, Lestrade knew, because Mycroft would ever go to a pub without him but because he enjoyed Lestrade. They had fallen into alternating Saturday activities at first, and then, as they had grown more comfortable with each other, into blending them together, so that it wasn’t unusual to drive to the countryside so Mycroft could tell him about some poetic ruin that he was taken with and to end the day with drinks at a pub and a football match. Lestrade enjoyed Saturdays with Mycroft. 

What he was discovering on this particular Saturday was that he no longer enjoyed Saturdays without him. 

He lingered over the delicious breakfast Mrs. Taylor had prepared for him, and he scoured the newspapers looking for clues as to what Mycroft could possibly be working on. Of course, if Mycroft were doing a good job there probably would be no clues in the newspapers at all, which was somewhat frustrating. 

He considered the piles of work he had brought with him, but none of it seemed interesting. He wished work would call with some new and exciting crime, which was a Sherlockian thing to wish, but no wonder Sherlock had wished such things, if Sherlock had been this _bored_ all the time. 

Lestrade wandered into the kitchen, where both Mrs. Taylor and Reynolds seemed alarmed to see him. They’d been sitting at the table, clearly chatting, and Reynolds leaped up and said, anxiously, “Is there something wrong, sir?”

“No,” said Lestrade, and leaned against the kitchen counter. “You don’t have to call me ‘sir.’ I really wish you wouldn’t.” He felt as if he were _sir_ red to death. He felt, melodramatically, that no one was around to call him Greg now that Mycroft had disappeared. 

“Did you want something?” asked Reynolds, leaving off the _sir_ but asking the question so politely it might as well have been there. 

Lestrade sighed. “No.” He wanted to say, _This house is enormous and bloody lonely when there’s no one in it with you_. He wanted to ask, _How did Mycroft ever stand it before he met me?_ Which was an arrogant thing to think, but there you had it. Lestrade crossed his arms and said, “Does he do this a lot?”

Reynolds looked confused. “Do what?”

“Disappear like this.”

“I don’t know, sir,” Reynolds answered. 

Lestrade let the _sir_ go because he was irritated by the answer. “How can you not know? You run his household for him. You must know how often he just fails to sleep at home.”

“Well,” said Reynolds, carefully, looking slightly awkward. “Yes.” He glanced at Mrs. Taylor. “We do know that. But…we don’t know…how much of it…was just…that he didn’t have a reason to come home…before.”

 _Oh_. That clicked into place for Lestrade because he recognized it. When there was no reason to go home you worked more. He had done it himself. It was why this loneliness seemed so _new_ to him. Before Mycroft, he had not been used to empty Saturdays, he had filled them with work. And it was hard to guess how many late nights at work had been absolutely _necessary_ when it felt both as if none of them had been and all of them had been. 

“I’m sure he’d come home if he could, sir,” said Mrs. Taylor, kindly, as if worried that he thought otherwise. 

“Oh, yes, definitely,” Reynolds agreed. “Sometimes things just get complicated for him.”

Lestrade looked from one to the other of them, realizing that they were worried he’d leave Mycroft, worried he’d grow tired of the demands of his job and walk out. Two things occurred to him. The first was that Mycroft’s employees loved him far more than Lestrade thought Mycroft would ever suppose, that they were anxious he be happy, that they thought highly of him and wanted other people to feel the same. The second was that if Mycroft’s _employees_ were worried he’d leave, how much more worried must Mycroft be? He would have hoped that Mycroft would know better, that Lestrade would never throw stones about such a thing, that Lestrade was quite aware Mycroft would prefer to be home with him on a Saturday than wherever he was. 

“I understand,” Lestrade said, trying to assuage their fears. “If it’s just going to be me for the day though I think there’s no reason to cook dinner, Mrs. Taylor. You should have the rest of the day off.”

Mrs. Taylor blushed pink with pleasure. “Really?”

She would have had the day off anyway, thought Lestrade, she usually did, that was why he and Mycroft went out on Saturdays. She had worked specially for him, he concluded, which was absurd. “Yes. Absolutely. As for you, Reynolds.” Lestrade paused in confusion. “Do you have days off?”

Reynolds smiled at him. “Please understand, sir, that I am under strict instructions to take excellent care of you.”

“I can take care of myself,” Lestrade remarked. 

“Nevertheless,” said Reynolds, as if that settled the matter. 

Lestrade considered. He could go out, he thought. He could maybe phone John. Except that doing so would force him to have a conversation about how he was at loose ends because he’d had to spend a day without Mycroft, and he didn’t much want to have that conversation. He said, instead, to Reynolds, “You and I are going to order in and watch football.”

Reynolds said, after a second, “Well. It _is_ Saturday.”

***

Lestrade texted Mycroft before he went to bed. _I want to make sure you know I’m not the least bit angry and not considering leaving, at all._ He read the message over and thought it sounded ridiculous, and a little like he _was_ angry and _was_ considering leaving. So he added, _I do, however, miss you_. This also sounded ridiculous, but he decided that he _was_ ridiculous, so he sent it. 

He woke to a piece of Mycroft’s stationery, folded in two and propped on Mycroft’s pillow, facing him, his name on the front. It said inside, _I didn’t want to wake you. I am glad to hear you’re not considering leaving; it saves me the effort of locking you up somewhere. –M._

“Hilarious,” muttered Lestrade, and considered texting that to Mycroft, then decided against pestering him. One soppy text was adorable. Multiple flirtatious texts probably got annoying when you were trying to save the world, or whatever Mycroft was doing at the moment. 

Instinctively, Lestrade went downstairs and checked the chess game. Mycroft had moved, and left his rook open. Mycroft never left a piece open accidentally, but Lestrade, after considering his options, decided to take advantage of it and depend on his ability to defend against Mycroft better if he was down a rook. 

Lestrade pulled out his mobile and found the number Mycroft had insisted he save, which was directly underneath _MH_ in his contacts. _MH PA_. He dialed it, and Mycroft’s PA answered after two rings. 

“Inspector,” she said, and she sounded bored, and he imagined it was quite annoying having to deal with your boss’s boyfriend. 

“Do you know where Mycroft is?” he asked. 

She sighed. “Sir…” she said, warningly. 

“I don’t want to know where he is,” he assured her. “I’m just saying, if I had something couriered to you, could you get it to Mycroft?”

“Yes, sir,” she answered, more readily. 

“Excellent,” he said. “And I can have it couriered to you at the office?”

“Yes, sir,” she confirmed. 

“Cheers,” he said, and hung up on her, then went into the library, where he found Mycroft’s stationery. He took out a piece, wrote on it, _You should have woken me. –G._ , folded it into the envelope, and added the rook. Then he sealed it and called, “Reynolds? Can you courier something to Mycroft’s office for me?”

***

Lestrade woke on Monday to find Mycroft was in bed with him, sound asleep. He was fully dressed, and he was lying on top of the covers, which gave Lestrade the impression that it was nothing more than a catnap, but it was still so delightful to see him that he lay very still and drank him in, not wanting to wake him.

Then his mobile alarm went off. 

Mycroft jumped, blinking into wakefulness. 

“Sorry,” said Lestrade, hastening to shut it off. 

“What time is it?” asked Mycroft, eyes closed again, which was unusual for him. Mycroft woke without the aid of alarms, and Mycroft woke immediately, ready to meet the day. He had to be exhausted, thought Lestrade. 

“Seven,” said Lestrade. 

Mycroft made a noise of distaste. “Is it really? Two hours ago I only meant to sleep for ten minutes. I should go.” But he made no move to go anywhere at all. “How are you?” he asked instead. His eyes were still closed, but his voice was growing more awake. “What day is it? A weekday, presumably.”

“Monday,” said Lestrade. 

“How was your weekend?” asked Mycroft. 

“Dull,” said Lestrade. “How was your weekend?”

Mycroft opened his eyes then and smiled at him. “Much the same. You took my rook.”

“I know it’s a trap.”

Mycroft inched closer to him. “Then why did you take it?”

“I decided I’d rather walk into that trap knowingly than fall into some other trap I hadn’t seen yet.”

“Practical of you.” Mycroft brushed his knuckles along the stubble on Lestrade’s jaw. 

Lestrade’s stomach tightened. Mycroft was warm and present and Lestrade had missed him desperately and wanted him even more. 

Mycroft sensed the shift in Lestrade’s mood and withdraw his hand. “Ah,” he said, “this is a trap you’re setting for me.”

“A trap?” echoed Lestrade, innocently. 

“Yes. You’re going to try to seduce me. When you know I have to go.”

“I would never be so irresponsible,” Lestrade denied. 

“I would,” said Mycroft, and rolled on top of him without warning, capturing his mouth in a bruising kiss that caught him by surprise and twisted his arousal upward several painful notches. 

Lestrade found the knot on Mycroft’s tie and pulled at it, loosening it, trying to simultaneously keep up with the pace of the kiss Mycroft was setting. 

“I knew you were a trap,” Mycroft told him, breathlessly, and kissed him again. 

“Then why did you walk in?” asked Lestrade. 

Mycroft answered around kisses. “Because you’re the sort of trap—no person—would ever willingly—avoid.”

“You say such lovely things—when you’re half-asleep,” Lestrade told him. 

Mycroft pulled back, looking down at him, his tie askew and his hair ruffled and his eyes dark. “I am wide awake, Detective Inspector,” he assured him, his voice low with promise. 

Lestrade shuddered with desire and tried to push at Mycroft’s suit jacket as Mycroft fidgeted about on top of him. “Why are you _dressed_?” he complained. 

Mycroft rolled to stand by the bed, and for a second Lestrade thought he was going to undress but instead he hastily pushed the blankets off of Lestrade and settled back on top of Lestrade, which was much better than being separated by clothes _and_ blankets, but was still less than ideal. 

“Take off your suit,” Lestrade told him, and Mycroft kissed him, his hands pushing Lestrade’s T-shirt upward so he could span them across Lestrade’s ribcage, heaving with his breaths, and that was lovely, truly, except that Lestrade could manage undressing himself, it was Mycroft’s complicated three-piece suit that was giving him trouble. 

“We don’t have time for that,” Mycroft replied, and now he was trailing fluttering kisses along Lestrade’s cheeks, dodging Lestrade’s attempts to recapture his mouth. “I was supposed to be back hours ago. I missed you.”

Mycroft never said things like that. Lestrade’s heart stuttered in his chest, and he was almost too stunned to kiss Mycroft back when he turned back to his mouth. 

“I missed you,” he said again, softer, sounding amazed by it himself. “Did you miss me?”

“You know I did,” Lestrade answered, and tried to distract him with a kiss. 

Mycroft’s checkmate counter to that was to push Lestrade’s boxers out of the way, closing his hand around him and giving him one hard, expert stroke that sent him arching helplessly upward with a gasp. 

“Did you miss me?” Mycroft asked him again. He had lifted himself up slightly, looking down at him. 

Lestrade clambered for air, twisting his hands helplessly in the bunches of fabric Mycroft was wearing. The knowing, clever, even stroke of Mycroft’s hand combined with the heat of Mycroft’s gaze in an assault he was nowhere near prepared to handle. “God, yes,” he said, unsure if he was answering the question or simply providing affirmation that Mycroft didn’t need, because Mycroft knew _him_ , and he knew how to make it punishing and fast and a pleasure so sharp that it sliced like pain, and Lestrade said, “Mycroft,” and as the waves of the climax battered through him he clung to him in a way that he didn’t dare let himself outside of bed. 

Lestrade eventually loosened his hold on whatever his hands were fisted into. Mycroft’s shirt he realized. And a bit of his waistcoat. And some of his tie. And some of his jacket. Bloody hell, so much _clothing_ , he thought. He registered vaguely that he was sweaty and gross and an absolute mess. Mycroft pressed a kiss to his forehead, and then a series of them down the bridge of his nose, to its tip, and then to his mouth, just a press of his lips, tender and adoring. 

“Greg,” he said, against his mouth, filled with that warm, heavy inflection he used with Lestrade, that Lestrade knew he only used with him, that Lestrade had come to interpret as _Other people might say “I love you,” but I do this instead_ , that Lestrade had come to love about Mycroft. 

Lestrade pushed himself past the temptation to sink into the gentleness, gathered reserves of energy, and flipped Mycroft onto his back. Mycroft blinked up at him in surprise. 

“Mycroft,” he said, trying to echo his tone, although he was sure he never got it quite right, but he hoped that Mycroft knew what he was trying to say. 

He kissed him, tender and adoring but with tongue, and Mycroft kissed him back, closing his hands into his hair to hold him in place over him. 

“I understand you’re in a rush,” Lestrade remarked, into the kiss, his hands deliberately undoing Mycroft’s trousers. “But I don’t want you to think…” Lestrade pushed at his trousers and his underpants, which Mycroft helped with, wriggling a bit for him. “…Even for a second, Mycroft Holmes, that you’re the only one who can push every button in five minutes flat.” 

“I’d never presume that,” gasped Mycroft, and let Lestrade prove his point. 

Lestrade, having proven it, settled against him on the rumpled sheets and gave himself over to post-coital lethargy. He felt delicious and content and far better than he had in days. When had it become a necessity to his mood to have regular access to Mycroft Holmes? The thought of it made his head swim a bit, and he closed his eyes, listening to Mycroft catch his breath and wondering if he had any idea exactly how absurdly in love with him Lestrade was. Lestrade actually suspected he did have an idea and that he’d had an idea about it long before Lestrade had. 

“You’ve made an enormous mess,” Mycroft said, eventually, lazily. 

“Oh, is it my fault, this mess?” rejoined Lestrade. 

“Absolutely,” said Mycroft, and Lestrade felt the kiss he brushed over his temple. “I’m going to send you a bill for this suit.”

Lestrade ignored the joke, shifted, propping himself up so he could look down at him. “You have to go back.”

“Well. Now I have to shower first. But yes, then I have to go back.”

Lestrade hesitated. 

Mycroft saw. “Don’t ask me about it. Please don’t.”

“I won’t. If you don’t want me to. But you could tell me, if you wanted. I wouldn’t tell anyone else. You could trust me.”

Mycroft stared up at him. Then he started laughing. 

Lestrade frowned, watching him dissolve into mirth. “What’s so amusing?”

“You,” he managed. “Thinking I don’t trust you. I trust _you_ more than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“Oh,” said Lestrade, caught between being flattered and being confused that Mycroft still was reluctant to talk to him about it. 

Another thing Mycroft saw. “I’d rather you not know,” Mycroft said, the amusement sliding off his face. “I don’t want anyone to think you have access to anything…I’ve no idea how to keep you safe, really. Not telling you…certain things…it’s the only way I can think of to…I’d trust you with anything; it’s everyone else I don’t trust.”

“They may just assume you’re telling me anyway.”

“Maybe,” Mycroft agreed, slowly. “But if I don’t, then it’s plausible deniability on your part. That would survive any truth serum. So I’d rather not.”

Lestrade wanted to think he was being ridiculously cautious and over-dramatic, worrying about safety and truth serums, but he didn’t think he was. He thought this was simply Mycroft’s life, and he’d agreed to be part of it. He’d never lived an exactly safe life, anyway, he supposed. “But you’re okay,” he said, wanting affirmation. He pressed his finger to the crease between Mycroft’s eyes, forcing his eyebrows to relax. “I really don’t care about the state of the planet, just the state of Mycroft Holmes.”

“The state of Mycroft Holmes, currently: deshabille.” 

Lestrade chuckled. “All right, but what about the forecast?”

“Storms on the horizon, but not much longer and not very severe. I think.”

“Good,” said Lestrade, and leaned down and kissed him. 

“I desperately need to get back to work,” Mycroft told him. 

“You need to take a shower. Then we should have breakfast. Then we’ll leave for work together. Like a perfectly normal couple.”

“I suppose you intend us to take this shower together.” 

“I love you because you’re clever,” said Lestrade. 

***

Tuesday was a day without Mycroft, but Lestrade noticed it less because he had a spate of killings tipped onto his desk. Awful, brutal killings, with no pattern they could find, cropping up throughout London, not concentrated in one area, and Lestrade spent the day driving from crime scene to crime scene, barely getting one processed before another cropped up, and he was racing to try to stop whoever was doing this before he had another body in his morgue who he’d failed to save. It was the sort of day when he felt keenly the loss of Sherlock as a source of assistance. He worked through the night, barely registering when food enough for the team appeared out of nowhere at some point and Colin told him that someone claiming to be his butler had delivered it. Colin had been confused by it, Lestrade had eaten the food mechanically and stared at the collection of data points in front of him, trying to make it make sense. 

Wednesday was more of the same. Every once in a while, food appeared in front of him, but Lestrade mostly ignored that. He flitted from crime scene to crime scene, trying to see the things he hadn’t seen the first time through. Finally, he had a revelation in the pre-dawn grayness of Thursday, a detail suddenly leaping into sharp relief, a string he pulled at and everything tumbled for him, and they arrested their suspect just before he bashed a brick into the side of his latest victim’s head. Which at least meant they should be able to make out an attempted murder case if they couldn’t pin the rest of the murders on him. 

It was the sort of case, though, that Lestrade hated. He went through the interrogation, and he tried to start on the paperwork, but his head ached with fatigue and anger. He hated cases without motive. He hated cases that were just about people being vicious to other people, without provocation or reason, simply because the other people were _there_. Most of the time, he felt as if his job had a purpose, as if he could systematically go through London and rid it of the people who threatened crime in it. But sometimes the task loomed so large that Lestrade felt pulled underwater by it, could see no way to find his way out of the maze of misery that was London crime. Sometimes he saw only the hopelessness of it all, the fruitless running-in-place he was doing. 

He stood and closed his door and phoned Mycroft without thinking, sitting heavily behind his desk and pinching at the headache throbbing between his eyes. He was tired and frustrated and _sad_ , really, and he wanted Mycroft to answer his phone and say his name in that way he had and everything would immediately be better, just with that. It was literally all he needed, one word from Mycroft. 

Mycroft didn’t answer. His phone tripped over to its impersonal computerized voicemail message, and for the first time it tumbled into Lestrade’s head that Mycroft was busy with whatever enormous crisis had happened, and that he shouldn’t have really rung him at all. 

It would be worse to hang up and not leave a message, Lestrade thought. Mycroft would see the missed call and worry. So he forced himself to sound as normal as possible and say, “Hey, it’s me, I just… It’s nothing. I just called to talk. I’m sorry. I forgot you’re busy.” 

He hung up and tossed the mobile to the desk and took a deep breath. He had done this job for years without Mycroft Holmes; there was no reason to get all caught up in being unable to reach him. He got up and made himself a cup of coffee, hoping the caffeine would help the headache, and forced himself through the paperwork, trying to be systematic about his evidence. He wondered where Colin was, and if he shouldn’t just leave this to Colin, but Colin, though improving, was not yet at the point where Lestrade would trust him with a case of this caliber. 

He wasn’t sure how long he sat at his desk, his head in one hand while he scribbled notes on his draft with the other, before Mycroft said, “Greg.”

Lestrade looked up abruptly, and he was so startled to see Mycroft standing in his office doorway that he said exactly what he thought, which was, “Oh, thank God.”

Mycroft smiled at him without much humor but with much sympathy in his eyes. “I suspected as much.”

“Suspected what?”

“That you were having a terrible day.”

“ _Terrible_ ,” agreed Lestrade, emphatically. 

“Come,” said Mycroft, simply, and turned away from the doorway. 

Lestrade grabbed his coat and followed Mycroft, passing Colin coming in, who turned to him quizzically. 

“I’ll be right back,” Lestrade told him, and followed Mycroft out of New Scotland Yard. The day was bracingly cold and drizzly. Mycroft held an umbrella out to cover him, but Lestrade was grateful for the sting of the cold water against his face. It seemed to help with the headache. 

There was one of Mycroft’s perennial black cars waiting, and Lestrade slid into it and leaned back against the seat and closed his eyes and felt Mycroft follow him in and heard the car door close and suddenly opened his eyes. 

“But,” he said, sitting up, as the car glided into motion. 

Mycroft lifted his eyebrows at him. 

“You’re busy,” said Lestrade. “I know you’re busy. I forgot, when I called you—”

Mycroft shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t want you to think that I—”

“It doesn’t matter,” he repeated, firmly. “This is what I’m doing now. The rest of it can wait. Tell me about your day.”

Lestrade considered protesting more, but he didn’t want to. It was comforting to have Mycroft there; it was comforting to be in this car. He closed his eyes again and leaned back against the seat and said, “I’m not sure I want to.”

“When’s the last time you slept?”

“Pot, kettle, et cetera,” said Lestrade, and yawned. 

“It doesn’t bode well when you haven’t even the energy to use the entire idiom,” remarked Mycroft. 

Lestrade smiled a bit. He listened to the muted sounds of London traffic outside the car. He said, carefully, “Sometimes human beings do the most terrible things to each other. For no reason. For absolutely no reason.”

“And when they do that, you stop them,” said Mycroft, simply. 

“Not nearly soon enough,” said Lestrade. 

“Much sooner than it would happen without you,” Mycroft corrected him. 

Lestrade opened his eyes and looked at him and sent him a crooked smile. “I must look like a disaster for you to be so soothing of my ego.”

“Inspector Lestrade,” said Mycroft, in that tone he had. “Have you made an arrest?”

“Yes,” said Lestrade.

“Good. Then come home, have a Scotch with me, and take a nap.”

Lestrade said, feeling every ounce of his exhaustion in his inability to keep himself from saying it, “Sometimes I have no idea what I would do without you.”

“Not at all,” said Mycroft, smoothly. “It’s quite the other way around.” Before Lestrade could process that, Mycroft leaned forward and buzzed the driver, saying, “Take me home.”

“I don’t want to keep you,” Lestrade said. “I’m feeling better now, really. If you need to go—”

“But I don’t,” said Mycroft, and smiled at him. “Not just yet. Everything will survive for an afternoon. Call your sergeant, and tell him you’ll finish the paperwork in a couple of hours.”

Lestrade, feeling incapable of arguing, did as he was told. He went home with Mycroft and had a Scotch and fell asleep next to him. He woke at dusk in a bed that was empty except for his queen resting jauntily against Mycroft’s pillow. 

Lestrade looked at it and said, affectionately, “Bastard.”


	3. Chapter 3

On his second consecutive Saturday without Mycroft, Lestrade thought ahead and told Mrs. Taylor not to worry about coming in at all. Which meant, of course, that she made sure that he knew that she’d left him with a variety of scones and muffins and breads for breakfast. 

Lestrade let himself sleep late again and told himself he’d enjoyed it. He awoke to no notes from Mycroft, but Mycroft had played a move in their chess game, so he had clearly been in the house at some point. Lestrade admitted being a bit annoyed at not having a note, but he was more annoyed when he realized that Mycroft’s king was open. It wasn’t a checkmate, and Mycroft would sidestep it easily, but Lestrade studied the board nonetheless and tried to determine if it was part of a deliberate strategy on Mycroft’s part or if Mycroft had become sloppy in his play. Under normal circumstances, the latter possibility would never have occurred to Lestrade, but in these particular circumstances it did occur to him. Annoyance battled with worry, and worry won out. He didn’t know if it meant the crisis was reaching a point where Mycroft was too distracted to leave him notes and pay full attention to their chess game, or if it meant that Mycroft was too tired to leave him notes and pay full attention to their chess game. Either way, Lestrade worried. 

Lestrade went into the library, retrieved a piece of stationery from Mycroft’s desk, and then paused. He had not thought twice about going into Mycroft’s desk to get stationery. He never thought twice about going into any of Mycroft’s things. He had assumed, long ago, that Mycroft would never leave anything truly top secret merely lying around the house. And why, thought Lestrade, had he assumed that? There were few places more secure than Mycroft’s house. 

Lestrade sat in Mycroft’s chair behind his desk carefully, aware that Mycroft would be able to tell immediately that he had done so, because Mycroft could always tell everything. Mycroft kept his stationery in the top right-hand drawer, neat divided piles of it, with expensive fountain pens. Lestrade looked at the other drawers of Mycroft’s desk. He had no idea what was in those drawers, but he could see that not one of them was locked. 

_I trust you more than anyone I’ve ever met_ , Mycroft had told him. Lestrade sat at Mycroft’s desk and looked around his library. He thought of this house, where lately he had been alone and unsupervised more often than not. This house to which he had a _key_. He looked at the unlocked drawers and wondered what he had done, and when he had done it, to make Mycroft trust him this much. He thought of the first time he’d realized how much Mycroft trusted him, when he had told him where to find John without hesitation, even though Lestrade could have been about to spill any number of secrets. How had Mycroft always known, before Lestrade had known it himself, that he would never do anything to betray him in any way? 

Lestrade wrote _Check_ on the piece of stationery he’d taken from the drawer, sealed it in an envelope, and stood from behind Mycroft’s desk, calling for Reynolds as he left the room and thinking of Mycroft and trust and Sherlock’s secret and John. 

Reynolds was coming down the stairs as Lestrade entered the front hall, and Lestrade said to him, “Can you have this couriered to Mycroft’s office?” indicating the envelope in his hand. Lestrade still had no idea where Mycroft’s office was located, not, he knew, because Mycroft didn’t trust him but because Mycroft didn’t trust everyone else. 

“Yes, sir,” Reynolds agreed, taking it. 

“Also,” continued Lestrade, making a decision, “I’m going out today. To a pub, I think, with a friend. You’re welcome to join us, if you like.”

Reynolds hesitated. “I’m very flattered, sir, but if you aren’t going to be here…”

Reynolds trailed off, and Lestrade imagined he had any number of things he’d rather do if he didn’t have to be _here_. “Absolutely,” said Lestrade. “I will definitely not be here, so you can take off all day if you like. I won’t even tell Mycroft.”

Reynolds smiled. “Inspector, you do know by now that there wouldn’t be any need to _tell_ him.” 

“I know,” agreed Lestrade, because it was true, Mycroft would simply _know_. 

The smile abruptly faded off Reynolds’s face. “Not in a _sinister_ way,” he corrected, hastily. 

“I know that, too,” Lestrade assured him, because that was also true. 

Reynolds went off to courier the note to Mycroft, and Lestrade phoned John, who answered and said he would be delighted to meet up for a couple of pints. Lestrade, on his way out the door, called to Reynolds, “Enjoy your afternoon,” and then carefully locked up behind himself. 

“Where’s Mycroft today?” was what John asked him when they were settled with pints. 

“Working,” said Lestrade, and looked closely at John. The truth was that Lestrade had not spoken to Mycroft since Thursday afternoon, and he missed him with a clawing desperation that was absurd. And he knew Mycroft was alive and well and perfectly fine, knew that in a matter of days, presumably, he would come home and things would go back to normal. In the meantime, John thought Sherlock was dead, John thought he would never see Sherlock again, and if Lestrade missed Mycroft after two days, Lestrade could not imagine what it must be like when the days numbered in the dozens, reached into the hundreds, with no end in sight. He could literally not comprehend the idea of how he would face it, and he did not know how John was doing it as stoically as he was doing it. 

And the most annoying thing about all this was that now that Lestrade fully and finally understood exactly what John must be going through, exactly what withdrawal from a Holmes who you loved felt like, Lestrade was also fully and finally understanding why Mycroft was insistent John not be told Sherlock was alive. Lestrade wanted nothing more than to tell him, to ease at least a little bit of his ache, to tell him there was hope and that he had only to wait, that he had only to make it through this rough patch and then everything would go back to the lovely way it had been. But there was no way that John wouldn’t go in search of Sherlock immediately. There was no way, knowing that he was alive, that John would ever be able to pull off keeping it a secret. John was not an especially good liar to begin with, and he would never have been able to lie about _that_. 

Lestrade thought of Mycroft, somewhere in London, he presumed, although he did not know. He thought of what he would do if anyone told him that Mycroft was in hiding and battling criminals all by himself to save Lestrade’s life. Whatever Mycroft was doing, he assured Lestrade it wasn’t dangerous, and that was the only way Lestrade could be as casual in letting him do it. What Sherlock was doing decidedly _was_ dangerous, and Lestrade would never have let Mycroft do anything so foolhardy without him. 

Lestrade bit back everything he wanted to tell John about Sherlock and said, instead, “I think I’m living with Mycroft now.”

“You _think_?” said John. He didn’t even sound surprised, as if nothing Lestrade and Mycroft did could surprise him anymore. 

“It’s unclear, really. Mycroft hasn’t been home much. But I have a key to the house.”

“You have a key to Mycroft Holmes’s house,” repeated John, and then shook his head a bit as he took a sip of his beer. “I can’t even believe that Mycroft Holmes _has_ a house.”

“There’s a whole wardrobe full of umbrellas,” Lestrade told him. 

“Is there?”

Lestrade shrugged. “Possibly.” 

John chuckled. “Well, good,” he said. “I’m glad it’s working out. You’ve seemed very happy.”

Lestrade blinked. “Have I?”

“Regardless of what Sherlock would have led you to believe, I do notice _some_ things,” said John. 

***

At some point in the transition from Sunday night to Monday morning, Lestrade woke to being gathered up in someone’s arms and held tightly. 

“Mycroft?” he guessed, too drowsy to pull it together from context clues and just assuming that a strange man had not simply crawled into bed with him like this. 

“Sorry,” said Mycroft into the top of Lestrade’s head. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

Which was a lie, Lestrade knew it immediately, and he woke up. Mycroft had been in and out of the house constantly during this weird period they were in, during which he woke Lestrade if he wanted to and didn’t wake him if he didn’t want to. There was no way Mycroft had _accidentally_ woken him by crushing him into an embrace—he had done it quite deliberately, and that was very unlike Mycroft. 

“Mycroft,” said Lestrade, by which he meant to say that he knew Mycroft was lying and that he wanted to be told what was going on. Mycroft was pressed against his back, so that he couldn’t see his face. He could, however, feel him, and he could feel the faint tremor against him, almost as if Mycroft were trembling, which was _so_ unlike him that Lestrade could barely comprehend it. He spent a moment staring into the moon-dim darkness of the bedroom, trying to think what to do next. 

Mycroft brushed a kiss over the back of Lestrade’s head, which Lestrade knew was the only spot he could reach without loosening his hold on him. He took a shaky and shuddering breath. “Greg,” he said. 

“What?” Lestrade responded, holding his breath in response. 

“Tell me you love me.”

Mycroft never needed to be told that. In fact, Lestrade had always assumed Mycroft found the words hollow and unoriginal. Mycroft told Lestrade he loved him in a million different ways and in that very deliberate tone of voice he had, but never with the words _I love you_. And Lestrade might say it, sometimes, mostly in jest, but he had mainly followed Mycroft’s lead on the matter and left it unsaid underneath all the other things he told Mycroft. And he knew Mycroft understood that. He knew Mycroft had received the _Check_ note and read in it all the things that had been whirring through Lestrade’s head when he had written it: _I’m worried about you, and I miss you, and yes, I love you_. All of it, in one word—it was how Mycroft communicated with people. Except for at this moment, apparently. 

“I love you,” said Lestrade, immediately, because if Mycroft had requested it, then Mycroft must need it. He pushed against him slightly, forcing Mycroft to loosen his hold enough so that Lestrade could turn over and look at him. “Mycroft—”

Mycroft cut him off by kissing him, hard and desperate. “Don’t say anything,” he begged. “Don’t say anything else.” He leaned his forehead against Lestrade’s, eliminating Lestrade’s ability to analyze his expression, which Lestrade knew he did deliberately. 

Lestrade listened to Mycroft take deep breaths and pushed away his frustration. Lestrade decided to say nothing else. He said again, “I love you.”

Mycroft took one more deep breath, and then kissed him again, gentler this time. “Thank you,” he said, as if Lestrade had done him some sort of enormous favor. And then he rolled out of bed. “I have to go.” He sounded much calmer, cool and collected and much more like himself. 

Lestrade tried to read between all of Mycroft’s lines but he didn’t get very far because he didn’t know enough about what was happening or what Mycroft’s job even was. He deduced only that something had happened that had shaken Mycroft, and that it had probably been a decision Mycroft had had to make, because Mycroft was seldom shaken by outside events, was seldom not _involved_ in some way in everything that happened to him. He said, because he had no idea what else to say, “Be careful.”

Mycroft paused with his hand on the doorknob and glanced back at him. “It isn’t dangerous,” he said. 

***

Lestrade was distracted at breakfast on Monday. He had not fallen back to sleep after Mycroft had left, and he had eventually given up and gone downstairs and flipped through Mycroft’s cable channels aimlessly until it was a reasonable hour to think about going to work. It was the first time since he’d started living in Mycroft’s house without Mycroft that he was up early enough to do the sort of leisurely breakfast Mycroft enjoyed, but Lestrade barely tasted the food Reynolds put in front of him. He frowned at the newspapers without seeing a single word on them and considered texting Mycroft, decided against it, considered it again, decided against it again. 

“Inspector,” he heard Reynolds saying, and he had the impression it was not the first time Reynolds had called for him. 

He forced himself to focus. “Yes,” he said, realizing he’d been holding an empty cup of coffee and putting it down. 

“I was wondering what you wanted to do with Mr. Holmes’s tickets to the Royal Festival Hall.”

“His what?” echoed Lestrade. 

“His tickets to the Royal Festival Hall. For Friday night.”

“He has tickets to the Royal Festival Hall on Friday night?”

“Well, he’s a member. He normally tries to go when the Philharmonic Orchestra is playing, sir.”

That really wasn’t surprising. Mycroft liked classical music. It made complete sense to Lestrade, the more he knew about Mycroft, that Mycroft would have bought Sherlock an extravagantly expensive violin, not just because of Mycroft’s odd ways of expressing affection but also because Mycroft appreciated good classical music being played well. 

In fact, the only thing surprising about this revelation that Mycroft had liked to go hear the Philharmonic was that Mycroft had never mentioned it before. “But we’ve never been there,” said Lestrade. 

“No, sir,” agreed Reynolds. 

Lestrade paused, thinking. “Well, who does he normally take, then? Maybe they can use the tickets.”

Reynolds looked as if he was trying to be delicate. “He simply hasn’t been going, sir.”

Lestrade frowned briefly. “So he hasn’t been using his tickets?”

“No, sir.”

Lestrade was a bit irritated by that, but Reynolds wasn’t really the person to chastise about that. So he said instead, “You don’t think he’ll be back by Friday night?”

“I don’t know, sir. I thought it was possible you didn’t know about the tickets, and so I should bring them up in case you wanted to make alternate arrangements.”

Lestrade thought. “Do you want them?”

“Not particularly, sir,” replied Reynolds, slowly, as if hoping the statement wouldn’t offend Lestrade. 

Lestrade chuckled. “Fine. Thank you for letting me know about them. I won’t go without him, but let’s hold onto them in case he decides to come home before Friday.”

“Very good, sir,” said Reynolds, and then handed him the travel mug of coffee that had become standard for him. 

Lestrade accepted the coffee, and went to work, and tried not to spend the whole day worrying about Mycroft. He took out his phone every few minutes with the intention of texting him simply to make sure he was all right, and then replacing it without ever sending a text. He had no idea whether a text would make Mycroft feel better or worse about whatever was going on. 

He wondered if dating Mycroft Holmes was going to get easier or harder with time. 

Things were rather slow at work, which was a relief compared with the way the week before had ended but didn’t help to distract him at all, and he went home much earlier than he would have liked, resigned to spending the evening fretting uselessly about Mycroft. 

He let himself into the house, and Reynolds met him at the door as he usually did. 

“No files tonight,” Lestrade told him. 

“Mr. Holmes is home, sir,” Reynolds replied, and Lestrade froze in the process of taking off his coat. 

“What do you mean?”

“He’s upstairs sleeping. He said you should wake him when you got home.”

Lestrade glanced up the staircase toward the bedroom. “How long has he been sleeping?”

“Two hours,” Reynolds answered. 

Lestrade nodded. “Thank you.” He headed up the stairs. 

“What would you like to do about dinner?” asked Reynolds. 

“We’ll hold it until he wakes up.”

“Aren’t you going to wake him now, sir?”

“Not at all. I’m sure he needs much more than a couple of hours’ sleep.” Lestrade kept walking up the stairs because, while he had no intention of waking Mycroft, he had every intention of verifying Mycroft was really there. 

He was. Sound asleep and properly under the covers. Lestrade leaned against the doorjamb and watched him for a moment. He knew he was smiling ridiculously and probably looked like an idiot, but he didn’t much care. He considered crawling into the bed, but Mycroft was a fairly light sleeper and Lestrade didn’t want to disturb him. So he settled for letting himself have a besotted moment of grinning at his sleeping form before turning and closing the door and walking back down the stairs. 

He was reading in the library, a political thriller that Colin had lent him, but he put the book down when Mycroft paused in the doorway. He must have woken and showered, because he looked crisp and put-together, and, although Lestrade enjoyed when Mycroft looked disheveled, he liked that he looked very much like Mycroft at the moment. It was an enormous relief after the uncharacteristic night before. 

“You were supposed to wake me when you got home,” Mycroft told him. 

“I thought you needed the sleep.”

“More than I needed to see you? Hardly,” said Mycroft, lightly, walking into the library and settling in the chair opposite the sofa Lestrade was sprawled on. “How’s the book?”

“Terrible,” said Lestrade, and tossed it across to him. “Is that what your life is like?”

Mycroft scanned the summary on the back cover, his face inscrutable. “My life is much less interesting.”

Lestrade doubted that somehow. “Do you have to go back?”

“To work?” said Mycroft, and dropped the book negligently onto the coffee table. “Eventually.”

“But not now.”

“It’s settled. Everything’s settled and resolved.” 

Lestrade studied his face, wishing it were less blank. “And how are you?”

There was a long pause. “Tired,” Mycroft answered, finally. 

“We should have dinner,” Lestrade decided, “and then we should go to bed.” He sat up on the sofa in preparation for moving to the dining room. 

“How are you?” Mycroft asked, looking as if he had no intention of getting up to go to dinner. 

“I’m fine,” said Lestrade. 

“How was your day?”

 _Indecisive_ , thought Lestrade. “Fine.”

Mycroft smiled at him. “To think, how much I missed your stimulating conversation.”

Lestrade laughed. “It was an unremarkable day.” The most remarkable thing about it had been Mycroft, that morning, but Lestrade thought it obvious that Mycroft was studiously ignoring that event and did not want to discuss it. 

“Are you still busy?”

“No, that case is tied with a bow.”

“Stay home with me tomorrow,” said Mycroft. 

Lestrade gave him a quizzical look. “Are you staying home?”

“Yes,” said Mycroft, emphatically. 

Lestrade looked thoughtful. “I suppose I could, if you wanted me to.”

“Very much,” Mycroft told him. “We’ll sleep late, we’ll have breakfast in bed, we’ll watch _North by Northwest_.”

All of which sounded quite heavenly and alarmingly unlike Mycroft. Lestrade studied him and said, carefully, “Are you all right?”

Mycroft smiled at him, and he looked deeply exhausted, but he also looked warm and content. “I will be,” he said.


	4. Chapter 4

Mycroft woke to find Greg’s gaze unerringly on him, heady and dizzying from his pillow only a few inches away. It was seldom that Greg woke before him—in fact, Mycroft couldn’t recall it ever happening before, under normal circumstances, before the recent insanity—and Mycroft was a bit relieved about that if it meant it helped him avoid this heavy scrutiny. 

“Are you watching me sleep?” he asked, half-amused. 

“Possibly,” Greg answered, and then, “I missed you desperately.”

He said it as if it were an enormous confession he was making. Mycroft marveled at how Greg seemed to have no idea how much his emotions were written on his face. He was quite aware Greg had missed him desperately, it had been impossible for him to miss. Half of him wanted to apologize, caught up in an odd guilt over how lonely Greg had clearly been. None of it had been Mycroft’s fault, and there was nothing for him to apologize for, but he felt terrible about it all the same.

He rejected the idea of an apology, and wondered if he should simply say he’d missed him in return, which seemed trite and also a gross understatement, because he hadn’t _missed_ him, that wasn’t an accurate statement at all. He had _craved_ him, was perhaps a more accurate statement. He had _needed_ him, possibly came closest to it. He had come home just to spend a few moments near him, had carried his notes around in his suit pocket like some sort of melodramatic Romantic poet. 

He didn’t, really, have any words for exactly what Greg was and exactly how his absence or presence affected him. 

He tried to think of something he could say in response, and what he heard himself say was, “Talk to me.”

“About what?”

“Anything. I’ve missed the sound of your voice.”

“Why don’t you ever take me to the Royal Festival Hall?”

The question caught him by surprise. “What do you mean?”

“Why don’t you ever take me to the Royal Festival Hall?” Greg repeated. 

Mycroft frowned a bit. “That’s not talking to me. That’s asking me a question.”

“Did you think I wouldn’t like the Philharmonic?” Greg persisted. 

Mycroft’s frown deepened. He could not remember the last time he had taken a full day off of work, and he had decided to do it so he could spend the day with Greg, and Greg had decided to open the day with quarrelling. “Frankly, yes,” he informed him, letting his irritation show. 

“But _you_ like the Philharmonic,” Greg pointed out. “What does it matter whether I like it?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Mycroft, impatiently. “Of course it matters whether you like something.”

“I think we should go,” he decided. 

Mycroft lifted his eyebrows. “You want to go to the Royal Festival Hall?”

“I want to go to the Royal Festival Hall _with you_. That’s an important distinction.”

“Why?”

“Because you like it. Because I think, honestly, you probably love it, given what I know about you. Because I suspect you’ve had a terrible week, and definitely a terrible couple of days, and you’ll never tell me about it, because that isn’t what you do. And I’m not offended, and I won’t pry, but you need something nice, something you enjoy, and we should go to the Philharmonic.”

Mycroft stared at him for a very long moment, gathering his thoughts. Greg always made him feel as if, if he weren’t careful, he would babble like an idiot, a press of words tumbling out of him, and none of it would make much sense. He managed, eventually, “But that’s what I’m doing today. Something nice, something I enjoy.”

Greg beamed at him, and kissed him a bit messily, which was really very nice. “Take me to the Philharmonic,” he said, drawing back. 

“If you insist,” said Mycroft. 

“You know,” continued Greg, “it makes sense, but I thought possibly the opera.”

“What about the opera?”

“That you’d like the opera more.”

“Why would you think that?” asked Mycroft, trying to recall if he’d ever once listened to opera while around Greg, and thinking that he definitely had not, although he listened to Philharmonic recordings all the time. 

“Because everyone in an opera is so unnecessarily dramatic,” said Greg, “I thought that would appeal to you.”

He was grinning down at him, his dark eyes bright with amusement. 

“Shut up,” said Mycroft, and kissed him in such a way that Greg really did shut up for quite a little while. 

***

The program was Strauss, Brahms, and Mahler, and Mycroft, settled into his seat, realized that he’d missed the Royal Festival Hall. He hadn’t thought that he had, because he had been busy falling in love with Greg and everything else had seemed rather secondary to that, but it was nice to be back, with its buzz of voices and its tuning instruments. He liked the _acoustics_ of the place. He liked, really, everything about it, and he especially liked having Greg next to him, and something uncurled inside him, a final bit of tension he hadn’t realized he’d been clinging to. There was a special ops team fanned out discreetly behind them and an entire concert hall full of people beyond that, but Mycroft looked at Greg’s profile and saw only him. His eyes were narrowed, scanning the crowd, cataloguing impressions in an automatic way that Mycroft knew Greg didn’t realize he did, a sweep of every scene as if it might be a crime scene. Mycroft was quite familiar with the impulse. And he was content to let Greg scan this particular scene while he scanned Greg. 

“Do you know these people?” Greg asked, abruptly, turning to him. 

Mycroft glanced around, considering. He had been a member of the Royal Festival Hall for years, but he didn’t make much of a habit of socializing there. “Some of them,” he answered. 

“Will they come say hello to you?” 

Mycroft looked at him curiously. “Are you nervous?”

“No,” Greg obviously lied. 

“Please don’t lie to me—you’re terrible at it. You’re also far more charming than I am, so you really shouldn’t be alarmed should anyone care to strike up a conversation with us. However, they won’t.”

Greg noticed the sureness with which he spoke, which of course he would. “Why not?”

Mycroft looked at him mildly. “Because why would they ever know a minor government official like me?”

Greg laughed. “Does anyone really believe that about you?”

“Mostly everyone.”

“How can they possibly make that mistake?”

“I have old money and an impressive education. They use it to explain all manner of things.”

Greg shook his head, and sighed, and looked generally amused by the entire thing. 

Mycroft loved him more than he knew what to do with. “Thank you for coming here with me,” he said. 

Greg looked at him in surprise. “Oh, don’t mention it,” he said, and then, grinning, “However, next we’re going to a football match together.”

“No, we’re not,” said Mycroft, enjoying the rhythm of the teasing. 

“Yes, we are.”

“I may have to work that day.”

“What day?”

“All days with football matches,” he rejoined, good-naturedly. 

Greg startled him by kissing him suddenly, and he froze for just a moment before he kissed him back. 

Which Greg noticed. He drew back. “Sorry, should I not have done that?”

Mycroft looked at him, as the lights flickered around them. “Move in with me,” he said. 

Greg looked stunned. The lights flickered again, seeming to make the expression on his face even starker. “Oh,” he said, and then the lights went out altogether and the orchestra started playing. 

Which was terrible timing. _He_ had terrible timing. He should never have said anything at all. He had moved everything forward much too quickly, and he was annoyed with himself. Why could he not read this particular chessboard correctly? 

He had thought Greg would like the idea. Certainly Greg already seemed at home in the house, and Mycroft liked having him there. It appealed to him, the concept that, no matter the mess around him at work, Greg would be waiting at home. At _his_ home, at _their_ home. 

But of course, really, what was in it for Greg? Greg, who had surely just realized that he was a difficult man to live with. Greg was affable and easy-going, and Mycroft loved all of that very much, but it was completely the opposite of Mycroft himself, as Mycroft well knew. “Affable” and “easy-going” were not words anyone would ever use to describe him, not even the slightest of his acquaintances. 

What was even worse was all that buoyant optimism latent in Greg’s character, all of his endless enthusiasm for whatever might be coming next. Mycroft adored it even as he failed to truly comprehend how it could exist in him, and he worried he might accidentally extinguish it. He thought of Greg’s downtrodden message on his mobile that day and the unmistakable sensation of fear that had squeezed at his chest. The world around him had been going to pieces, but he couldn’t have _Greg_ that way, that had been intolerable, and what if, somehow, in some convoluted way, that had been his fault, because Greg had been lonely and had missed him and had brightened as soon as he’d seen him, relieved and delighted and terribly trusting, and Mycroft had no idea what to do with any of that. He could not remember ever having provoked such a reaction in any human being before, and he was terrified of doing the whole thing wrong, of playing the chess game so clumsily that in the end he ruined whatever it was about Greg that made him so irresistibly Greg. 

Which he thought it possible he was not far from doing. Greg, who worried about the terrible things human beings did to each other. Greg, who had called Mycroft to stop him worrying about that. Mycroft, who, not long afterward, had sat at a desk and dialed a number and said a single word and ended several dozen lives, and Greg had, upon his request, not long after _that_ , assured him that he loved him, an astonishing thing. Would he have said it if he’d known? Sometimes Mycroft desperately wished Greg wasn’t so understanding. He wished Greg would poke about the house, would ask more questions about what he did, wouldn’t merely ask instead if he was all right and say that he loved him and missed him and they should have dinner and go to the Philharmonic. 

Mycroft didn’t hear a single note of the music. He applauded when he was supposed to applaud and registered none of it. It was a relief when it was over. 

Greg was talking to him, pulling on his coat, and he looked mildly rumpled, and Mycroft wondered how he always managed to look rumpled and wondered how he thought that such a painfully adorable ability. He tried to pay attention to what Greg was saying, but it didn’t seem to be anything that merited a response. He walked swiftly, leading Greg, who kept up with him effortlessly, still talking, until the moment when he hung back, and Mycroft, noticing the space of his absence, paused and turned back to him. 

Greg was looking at him curiously. “Aren’t you going to have to work?”

Mycroft realized he had no idea what he was talking about. “When?”

“The day of the rock concert.”

“What rock concert?”

Greg cocked his head. “Haven’t you been listening to me? I said the music was better than I thought it would be, and that maybe all music was better live, and that we should attend a rock concert next, so you could see, we could do it instead of the football match. I don’t even think you’re listening to me now.”

“Yes, I am,” said Mycroft, watching their car pull up. 

“What happened?” asked Greg. “Didn’t you like it?”

“It was lovely,” Mycroft replied, automatically, opening the door. 

“Did they play poorly?” Greg asked him, sliding into the car. 

“I’m sure they played beautifully,” said Mycroft, impatient with the conversation, and followed him into the car. “About what I said,” he began. 

“What you said when?” said Greg. He looked annoyed as well, and then seemed to realize. “Wait, is this about moving in with you?”

“Forget that I said anything,” said Mycroft. 

“Mycroft, I’m _already_ living with you. Have you not noticed this? You, the observant Mycroft Holmes?” Greg grinned at him, highly amused. 

“Oh,” said Mycroft, because, now that he mentioned it… He felt like an idiot.

“Anyway,” continued Greg, settling comfortably into the seat, “thank you for the formal invitation. Should I send an RSVP, or can I just tell you yes right now?”

Mycroft looked at him, relaxed and inviting beside him, the traffic lights flashing periodically over his face, his tone warm and promising and affectionate. “You should ask me what I do,” Mycroft said. 

Greg shifted immediately, tense beside him. He looked at him, met his gaze, all seductive flirtation gone from his expression. “No,” he said, evenly. “I shouldn’t.”

He was frustrating beyond belief. “Yes, you should.”

“What does it matter, Mycroft?”

“That’s precisely why it matters, because you have no idea what it is I do, what it is I’ve _done_ , and if you knew I don’t think you would—”

“If I knew,” Greg inserted, calmly, “someone would have to kill me. At least, that was the impression I was under.”

“This isn’t a _joke_ ,” Mycroft snapped at him. 

“I know.” Greg sat up, and Mycroft realized he was angry. “It’s a little insulting, you know, that you think you’re so very clever that I must have no clue what it is you do. As if I don’t have inklings about it. As if I don’t have suspicions. I’m well aware, with your state secrets and security clearances and CCTV access. Nothing about you is quite legal, and nothing about you is actually _il_ legal, and I think I know exactly what that means about _you_. You’re untouchable because you have to be, because otherwise I’d have a file on you on my desk, wouldn’t I? I know the decisions you must make, and I know you tell yourself it’s all in a day’s work, because it is, but sometimes, every once in a while, that slips for you, and you have a moment like this, where you think it should matter to me, the blood that you imagine is on your hands. And it doesn’t matter to me, Mycroft. Or not in the way you think. The world, left to its own devices, spirals into horrible things. I see it every day. Do not imagine for a minute that I don’t know that someone has to be prodding it out of that path at a level much higher than the one I occupy, and I’d rather that someone be you than anyone else, because I love you and I trust you. I also live with you, and you can do everything you need to do and you will always be able to crawl into bed with me in the middle of the night and ask me if I still love you. Because I will. I won’t get angry, and I won’t leave, I’ll just…” Greg trailed off suddenly, as if he’d run out of things to say, and Mycroft stared at him, because he definitely had nothing to say in response. “I’ll just be there,” Greg finished finally, “at the end of the day, whenever that might be.” He paused again. “Most of the time. Unless I have my own case going on.”

Mycroft opened his mouth but found he could not think what to say. His mind was so full of Greg’s words, he could not think of any of his own that would have been even half as important, half as amazing, half as _wonderful_. 

“Good,” said Greg, noticing this. “I’ve won. Just kiss me.”

He did.

***

Lestrade was in the middle of a missing persons case, sitting in a conference room and frowning at the photos he had scattered on the table, willing one to stand out for him, to suddenly give him a clue. It had reached the point in the night when he was feeling the lack of sleep, when the adrenaline was crashing slightly. 

Colin walked in with the CCTV tapes Lestrade had requested.

“I should have had you get coffee while you were up,” Lestrade told him, scrubbing a hand over his face.

“You hate the coffee here,” Colin reminded him, which was true and was inconvenient and he blamed Mycroft for that development because the coffee had never bothered him before he’d grown accustomed to better coffee. “Here.”

Colin tossed something at him that Lestrade caught automatically. His mobile. 

“You left it in your office,” Colin said. 

“Oh,” said Lestrade, absently, and glanced at it, realizing he’d missed a text. 

_I want to make sure you know I’m not the least bit angry and not considering leaving, at all. I do, however, miss you. –M._

Lestrade smiled. He couldn’t help it. He forgot about wanting coffee, or being tired, or suffering from a lack of adrenaline. He texted back. 

_I am glad to hear you’re not considering leaving, it saves me the effort of locking you up somewhere._

Then he stood and walked to the other side of the table to change his angle, and said, feeling better, “All right. Here’s where we notice the clue that will find the girl.” And he believed it.


End file.
